The CLTS Knowledge Hub, based at the Institute of Development Studies, WaterAid, WSSCC and UNICEF co-convened a regional workshop in Saly, Senegal, 25th-28th June 2018 with support from AGETIP. The event brought together those engaged in rural WASH programming from 14 countries across the region (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic Congo (DRC), Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo) alongside experts working at regional and global levels.

The CLTS Knowledge Hub held a four-day regional workshop in Saly, Senegal; the major aim was encouraging and engaging sanitation practitioners across fifteen West and Central African (WCA) countries for them to share knowledge and experiences, as well as challenges and innovations in regards to Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and rural water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

At the recent West and Central Africa Regional Rural Sanitation workshop, organised by the CLTS Knowledge Hub, in Saly, Senegal 25-28 June 2018, sanitation practitioners from 15 countries met to discuss regional and national sanitation challenges, to identify lessons learned and share best practices. Many participants identified the different components of the sustainability of open defecation free (ODF) achievements and links with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically with the ‘safely managed sanitation’ target 6.2, as significant challenges.

Flying into Dakar, Senegal, for the start of the four day West and Central Africa Regional Rural Sanitation Workshop, hosted by the CLTS Knowledge Hub, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), I was struck by the arid landscape that we flew over. The vast vista was dominated by dry red soils and parched vegetation; a timely reminder of the water scarcity and food security problems faced by many countries in West and Central Africa (despite an abundance of human and natural resources).

Mali is renowned as the location of the one of the few Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programmes that has managed to demonstrate a reduction in stunting from increased community-level sanitation coverage. There is much to learn and share from this programme, especially across the West and Central Africa region where similar sanitation challenges are faced and open defecation rates generally remain high.

Sanitation practitioners attending the East and Southern African Regional CLTS and rural sanitation workshop visited the districts of Babati and Karatu, in the north east of Tanzania, in April 2018 to discuss the implementation of CLTS and WASH approaches under the Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for all (SSH4A) project run by SNV in partnership with the Government of Tanzania (GoT) and the UK's Department for International Develo